Disclaimer:The characters and fictional locations are the property of J.K.R. I do not own anything.If I did they would have more slash. ;)

Warning!:This story will contain slash,non-consensual situations,child abuse,violence,spelling errors,and my poor attempt at a plot.If you don't want to add any of the above to the things you must cope with in a day then go find something else to read.

Chapter 1:Who Knows?

The dungeons at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were shadowed tunnels of flickering torch light. Empty, echoing damp corridors abandoned for the freedom of summer by the students who loathed them the rest of the year. Abandoned by all but one midnight garbed mage who found his pains surcease in these dark and quiet spaces he alone cherished.

Severus Snape bent over his desk scribbling away at a piece of parchment.The flickering light from the candelabra beside him playing with the shadows surounding him.His life, among many others, hung on the words he inscribed here. His statement to the Ministry of Magic on the past weeks events. Events that had lead to the celebrated end of an unacknowledged war. Now Severus and his informants and fellow saboteurs who had fought for the Light from the depths of the Dark faced trial and imprisonment. It was Albus Dumbeldor and the Order of the Phoenix that stood between them and the wrath of the Wizarding world.

So Severus bent now in his shadowed rooms employing all his eloquence to sway a Ministry that cared little for truth, seeking instead a whipping boy to throw before the public.

A whispered rustle near his door brought his head up, hand clutching wand now instead of quill. No one, just an empty door way. But he did not lower his wand or his guard. He had not survived two wars as a double agent without a healthy paranoia.

"Show yourself. Now"

Severus' tone was controlled and cold. As his voice always was, as cold as the mask his face wore for the world.

A hand appeared in the air beside him, reaching up to pull back the deep hood of a cloak that shimmered into visibility as it slid from the slim form and shifted to the floor.

Now Harry Potter stood there clad in overlarge nightclothes, alabaster, delicate, his emerald eyes shadowed with dark emotion. Severus' mask almost slipped at the sight. Almost. Severus was surprised to see the boy. He had understood the boy would be staying with Remus Lupin, Last of the Marauders. He had seen the boy depart for the train with the other students after the Leaving Feast.

He had assumed he would spend his summer with the other Order members. Attending the banquets and celebrations in his honor. Basking in the hero worship the Wizarding world held for the Boy Who Saved Us. Huh, silly name. So, why the hell was he sneaking around Hogworts in that blasted cloak?

"Potter,"

The same cold empty tone. Severus lowered his wand.

"It may have escaped your notice but the war is over. Your enemies are all dead, insane, or imprisoned. Myself excepted of course."

Sarcasm. Sneer.

" Additionally, you have completed your seventh year, you are no longer a student. You are not bound by the student curfew. I therefore fail to see why you are still snooping about this school. Is it just an addiction, a habit you are unable to control? After seven years of breaking rules and spying on your 'evil potions master' you can't stop even though every excuse to do so has expired? Even if the rules governing students no longer apply to you?"

Severus again wondered briefly why the boy was still at Hogwarts. The train had left yesterday; Albus had said nothing about Potter returning.

Potter just stood there blinking at him, Severus was readying another volley of sharp words at the boy, when said boy lifted his wand and with a few quiet words bound the now shocked Potions Master to his chair.

"Potter, what the Bloody Hell-"

The rest of his indignant protest was cut of by another softly spoken word from Harry.

"Silencio"

Severus found his vocal cords unresponsive. Not for the first time, Severus found himself afraid of The Boy Who Lived. He had seen glimpses over the years of something very dark in the boy. Heard him shout the darkest of curses without the reluctance one would expect from the Champion of the Light. Even, on a few occasions, wondered if he was even in the right house, the boy could be very Slytherin. Now he had bound and silenced his most hated Professor. That, Severus felt, was rather worrisome.

"Yes, Professor, the war is over. Still, you should not have lowered your guard. Or your wand. I had thought more of you."

Harry smiled. It was not a happy smile, nor a sad one. It gave the impression of the lips of a corpse pulled back from its teeth in rigor mortis. It was disturbing, and macabre. Yes, Severus decided, worry was appropriate at this point.

"It's all done now, I did it. I killed him. Everyone can go on with their lives, now."

Harry's voice was soft but just as cold as any Severus had ever employed to scorn him.

Harry reached down to the fallen cloak searching its folds for something. As he straitened Severus saw the sharp skittering glint of candle light on steel. Those eyes rose to meet his again. As his former student pointed the long thin blade in his small hand at Severus' chest.

" Did you know?"

Harry began advancing toward his helpless teacher.

Severus just blinked at him. Did he know what? Damn it! Harry was now most defiantly scaring the hell out of him. And he had no notion what the boy was talking about, not to mention he was silenced with no way to respond. Harry correctly interpreted his look of confusion and continued.

" Dumbledor knew, how could he not? Poppy knew by necessity, not something you could hide from a medi-witch.Dumbledor swore her to secrecy, but still,how unethical of her. Remus didn't know for sure, but he suspected, and did nothing. They never cared. I want to know if you knew too. Or guessed, My dirty little secrets, Their dirty little secrets."

Harry was now standing directly in front of Severus. He locked eyes with the older man as he slid the tip of the dagger between his high collar and the sensitive skin of his neck.

"Did you know? Did you go along with Dumbledor because of what Black and my father did to you?"

Here he leaned in until his lips were brushing Severus' ear.

"And I don't mean those lies Dumbledor wove for them. I mean what really happened in the Shack."

Severus paled, though his normal pallor hardly revealed his distress. Did the boy really know? How would he use this information against Severus? He felt the cold of despair seize him, his soul writhe within him. Against his neck he felt the warm breaths of the boy who could be the twin of another young man. A man who had hurt, humiliated, and broken Severus for sport. Alongside those warm breaths the cold slide of steel. He wished nothing more at that moment then to end, be unmade, not to live his nightmare again. But he was still bound in silence, he could neither question nor answer, cry for help nor beg for mercy.

His heart beat so hard it nearly shook his thin form. Fear. NO! Not again.

What a fool he. To fear what could not be stopped. Useless adrenaline flooded his blood. How long, he wondered, before Potter would be whipping his blood off his young hands in disgust as his father once had done.

"Finite Incantium"

Potter whispered the counter charm releasing Severus from his cocoon of silence, though he was still tied by invisible cords. Severus was shocked by this.Brought back to the present by this unexpected return of his voice, he was able to regain some control of his demons.

"Did. You. Know.?"

The boy was now very close, his legs almost touching the Potion Masters knees as he stood over him.

"Know what?"

Severus voice was steady. But quiet, with no sarcasm or ice. That would speak volumes to any who knew him; he had lost neither even once in the war. But he had not been afraid then.

"The Truth. The Secrets. The Lies "

Potters voice was still flint and steel. Cold now, but ready to spark to flame if given proper fuel.

Severus felt he was trapped in some bazaar parody of conversation. Either he had lost his skills of communication or Potter was insane. He suspected the latter.

"I don't understand."

And with those words the boy in front of him sank to him knees before his former teacher. His head seemed to heavy for his slender neck and came forward to rest on the lap of the 'greasy git of a potions master'.

"You didn't know." Not a question.

The voice soft now, sad and lost.

Severus lent as far as his bonds allowed, bending down to try and glimpse his face.

"Know what? Tell me."

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